When your kids leave the nest it’s time for you to fly as well. Here are 29 tips for you to reconnect and reinvent yourself in this new stage of life!

If we are blessed as parents, one day our children will graduate from high school and leave for college, trade school, the military or start a job, move away from home and begin a new exciting chapter of their lives. But they are not the only ones facing new beginnings. Parents left with an empty nest must also start a new chapter in their lives. Ideally, the letting go process started way before the kid(s) moved out. But for a lot of us, it hits us like a ton of bricks when the day comes. Managing the transition mindfully will determine if it is one characterized by excitement, or one of great feelings of loss.

Here are a three tools that may help the transition to be more of a rite of passage versus a prolonged disruption to your well-being.

Affirmations are positive statements that help you to challenge self-limiting beliefs and negative thoughts. When you become intentional about incorporating affirmations as part of your routine, you can start to feel their power and begin to make positive changes.

Some people think that affirmations are too new age-y and unrealistic. I encourage you to shift your thinking and reframe affirmations this way: many of us do repetitive exercises to improve our physical well-being, and affirmations are no different. They are exercises for our mindset. Affirmations can reprogram our thinking patterns and as we practice we begin to think and act differently.

Here’s a quick and dirty list of how to use affirmations…

For many of us who are working from home right now, we’re suddenly forced to add household clutter to the “stuff I’ll deal with later” list. Even when tidying up is our last priority, this messiness can affect us!